De-SSSSed
 

SGF (Springfield, MO). So I get my BP and it has SSSS on it. I hand my BP to the TSA ID checker. He examines it like he is being paid by the hour. All of a sudden:

"Mbstone, please return to the ticket counter"

I snatch back the BP and head for the counter.

"You're not supposed to be a selectee. Here's your new boarding pass."

:confused: :D :eek: :p

I go back to the security guy and hand him the SSSS-less BP.

"How'd you do that?"

(Imitating Texas accent) "They figured out that ah have a good heart."

"TSA ID checker?" Do you mean the private contractor who IS paid by the hour to check your ID and boarding pass at the checkpoint entrance? :p

As for the airlines calling you back to the counter, good for you! I wish more airlines would do that. Unfortunately, they seem to not bother with it in the face of common sense. What you have to understand is that even a lot of us TSA screeners are skeptical about the SSSS system, especially when we see very stupid applications of it.

Examples: elderly and frail passengers, wheelchair bound passengers, military personnel in uniform on official travel orders, airline pilots, infants, children and, my all time favorite....musical instruments!!! (At the risk of being redundantly repetitive, a passenger had to purchase an extra ticket for the seat to accomodate his cello which he took as a carry-on. His ticket was "clear," but the one for the cello had SSSS on it!)

My point here is that the airlines CAN adjust boarding passes whenever the computer automatically tags someone for additional screening. Once you're at our checkpoint, however, our hands are pretty much tied. (We can only "de-select" children under 12.)

I once got a SSSS on a codeshare connecting flight, which did not involve going landslide.... made me wonder if TSA was going to come to the gate :rolleyes:

This happened to me once, and I was forced to return to the check point when it was time to board :confused:

The flight was held for me, holding up all the other pax, all so I could be sent back for a meaningless SSSS (I mean I could have hidden anything I shouldn't have had in the secure area, and then just retrieved it after I passed inspection)

What airline was this? Did you call an airline supervisor? They should have removed it - what you described was an exceptionally stupid response that inconvenienced you and the other passengers. You were already cleared into the sterile area, the code should have been ignored.

I get so :mad: :mad: when I read nonsense like this :td:

Sweet. :) Good story, Bart. I'm still chuckling. Gotta remember this one.

A CELLO???!!!

...and, Bart, you still tolerate and support the agency that allows airlines to play you in this way? Absolutely inharmonious with dignity and respect!

Betcha Beethoven and Stradivarius wouldn't have stayed composed!

The airline printed the ticket with the SSSS on it. For a teacher, you certainly do have a way of misreading a lot of posts.

I KNOW the airline did the SSS-ing. But as a TSA agent, weren't your "hands pretty much tied" when the BP came through? Why does TSA let itself be USED by the airlines in such a ridiculous way? It's as though you are the unwitting drones to a bunch of GA's and TA's who can be just as asinine and angry as you feel so many pax's are.

Let's not get carried away. Some of the most unsavory characters play cellos.

With the exception of infants, children and musical instruments, how do you know that these people are what they appear to be?

Plastic ID cards can be faked, people can pretend to be wheelchair bound, uniforms can be purchased with ease.

I'm not an SSSS supporter, but people are always saying stuff about how group X shouldn't be subject to screening, but they never mention how we're supposed to know if someone is actually a member of group X or not. Usually it comes down to a uniform. That's not very secure.

What matters is that they are screened. What matters is that they pass successfully through a metal detector and that their carry-on property is x-rayed, with secondary screening conducted only for the purpose of resolving alarms or whatever cannot be cleared by the primary screening methodologies. Whether traveling in true identity doesn't matter as long as they don't have any weapons or prohibited items.

This is what makes the pre-selection policy such a farce. It gives the illusion of extra security by screening people who have already been cleared by the primary screening method.

There you go again. An "...illusion..." is all SSS amounts to. Yet you tacitly support and reinforce the premise by your ENforcement of it.

Who are you, really? I'm serious! Who are you and what did you do with the TSA screener who posted last?

Bart, I think the airlines just pick the nastiest people in line at the time and SSSS them just to mess with them. Any thoughts on this????

Oh absolutely! I don't doubt that when someone draws negative attention to himself or herself at the ticket counter, they just "happen" to draw the SSSS on the boarding pass. The majority of it is the "luck of the draw," or due to the outdated profile used by CAPPS. However, I think there's a percentage of them who are selected by the airlines just out of spite. Of course, we're the ones left holding the bag and the ones who come out looking like villains.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I bet SSSS is an IT problem. The government mandates it, and the easiest way to apply it using current software is to take some preexisting bucket of passengers and print SSSS on their BPs. Making it truly random would be more work and there's no incentive to do it, no money in it for the airlines. And, the government is segmented enough bureaucratically to have one group of people know that it is ineffective and another group of people, who are responsible, but just don't care because their immediate higher ups don't care either.

A number of the 9/11 hijackers were selected by CAPPS (and one was selected by a ticketing agent who thought he was suspicious). Back then all that did was make sure they flew with their checked luggage.

Under today's system they'd get secondary screening - which may or may not have turned up a box cutter or mace (if the person in question had any, and if so, if he wasn't smart enough to give the contraband to his accomplice before reaching the checkpoint). But he'd still make it onboard the plane.

Excellent post.

Eureka! Finally! What I have NEVER read here or elsewhere! Two screeners who at least "don't doubt" a percentage of SSS is done in spite and not for security.

If in spite, why is it honored? Bart's "ripple effect" at work! Airlines "messed with" me, in Bambi's words, and in so doing "messed with" ALL screeners I'll ever again encounter or speak of. The stain continues to spread.

Better get word UP to your superiors, guys. I've tried and received equal doses of silence, form letters and other ineptitudes so far, but I'll never give up. I'm to the point now of complaining about the handling of my complaints.

Good luck in the trenches, but you know what you're doing full well...

By extension, you're "messing with" folks who deserve better.

Sorry, this theory is incorrect. I have received SSSS several times when I have checked in on a self-serve kiosk. I do not think that airlines have implemented technology by which a machine can determine that a passenger has drawn negative attention to himself.

Lumpy, how are we supposed to determine which catagory a person falls into. The SSSS is not color coded or anything, so we don't know why they do it either.

Didn't say that. I said that in addition to all the usual parameters that automatically tag someone with SSSS, there are probably those who will get SSSS on their boarding passes if they give the ticket agents a hard time. Not saying that all ticket agents do this; but I am saying that there are a few out there who will.

Now, are you saying that you're one of those who gives ticket agents a hard time? :p

Since Feb, '05, damn right! You know why, too, oh defender of SSSS "a farce" (by your own definition!) You know what flows downhill, too, and where it ends up. Your hands, gentle screener. Right where it's designed to go. Maybe someday, when the 'cattle pens' get filled too full of it, something will change.

No. Not holding my breath. Your 'governmental agency inertia' theory is usually pretty dependable.

I never give ticket agents a hard time initially. A corollary of the Golden Rule ... If one gives a ticket agent a hard time, one will not get an upgrade from the ticket agent. Several times ticket agents have upgraded me when I have been pleasant.

Another corollary of the Golden Rule:

After you're done peeing in my face, try to resist trying to convince me it was just a little rain...

Almost SSSS??
 

Attempted curb side check in the other day at LAS. Was told they couldn't check us in and to go inside to the airline counter because we were going to need extra screening. I assumed that meant that one of us or both of us were selectees. We proceeded to check in at airline counter and I asked if one or both of us were selectees as per what we were told outside, but she said no, neither of us were and didn't know why curbside agent didn't check us in.